


Associate Benefits (Part Four of Five)

by mresundance



Series: Associate Benefits (Libs AU) [4]
Category: AU - Fandom, The Libertines
Genre: AU, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-06
Updated: 2010-09-06
Packaged: 2017-10-11 13:24:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/112871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mresundance/pseuds/mresundance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU in which Peter and Carl work retail; Carl fights dirty. This part a bit darker than the others.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Associate Benefits (Part Four of Five)

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Don't know 'em. Dirty lies of a bored mind.

**Hypotheticals . . .**  
The Rumor Mill would have its own versions of what happened between Peter and Carl at the overnight. A favorite culminated in a bloody _Rocky_ style fist fight between the two on the docks. But that was more for entertainment value, because no-one could thoroughly explain the plot holes: "How could they keep working here after that? Alan would've fired their asses!"

Another, used to scare the guppies, employees so new and pink 'round the gills they actually thought the managers were qualified for their job and that the pay was _great_ and the people were _wonderful_ . . . this tale vaguely alluded to the dent in the wall by the lockers. It had been caused by Crazy Carl ramming Peter into the wall during that infamous overnight. But again, the plot holes. And how the dent suspiciously lined up with the armrest of the company wheelchair that sat under the coat rack.

In yet another, Peter and Carl came to their senses, made up, and ran off together into the night for lots of rowdy sex, ditching their girlfriends and leaving the dirty work of telling Annalisa and Kate up to fellow employees. The scum. Women seventeen to sixty-three would shake their heads in the break-room over stale chips and dip that had been left out on the tables, empathizing with poor Kate and Annalisa and thinking of men they had unfortunately known who were just too much like Peter and Carl. Their male counterparts, excepting Gary and Stan, would generally avoid the topic, because they thought they still shouldn't talk about the gay like it was too much of a good thing. (But it wasn't gay! _Per se_, Peter and Carl would've protested [Carl more likely than Peter].)

In others they just worked and that was too boring a story to be repeated long. Besides, it didn't suspend disbelief enough to be believable. Peter and Carl actually . . . working?

Whatever truth there was to any of these rumors can only be told by Peter and Carl, who didn't and still don't always remember the same at any rate. Thus, a truthful version might've gone something like this:

 

**Overnight**  
Overnights, the veritable Eden of retail. The store doors were locked, the lights dimmed and the music actually became palatable after midnight. No customers with their bovine stares and their questions like, oh, which color socks will my senile mother-in-law like for her birthday? (to which the only logical answer was something like, oh, I don't know, do I look like I know your senile mother-in-law?); no managers except for one or two who stuck around and would work with the other associates instead of clinging to their clipboards like life-rafts. It was quiet, it was calming. Work got done while people chatted and laughed and even played. It was the Zen experience of retail, the Nirvana, the Elysian fields. Peter and Carl had always done as many overnights as they could, because the working conditions were prime, there was 75 pence more per hour plus a paid hour-long lunch. These, and they would get away with things that would make Alan cack in his very posh pants if he knew. In the past they would take advantage of the lunch to have sex in some unfortunate dressing room(s), or play on the intercom. They had a bad habit of taking pop songs and mangling them in gargling sort of duets (well, Peter did the gargling, Carl did some kind of windy muttering). At one point Carl found he had a talent for some kind of Sporty Spice impersonation that made Peter cry from laughing so hard.

Oh, but what a long time ago that felt like to Carl. He had spent the whole week dreading it, and Annalisa had had to practically drag him into his car before work. He had sulked the whole time, muttering about calling in sick until Annalisa gave him The Look and he had shut up.

Carl walked into the door and Gemma, pushing around the zamboni* machine to polish the tiles, made kissy noises at him and asked if he needed any "wub wubs". Carl glared at her and thought of inventive means of turning her upside down into a rubbish bin. A whole bloody month and people still were taking the piss out of him. Annalisa had been surly about work taunts as well.

"Oh yes, now everyone will go around thinking I'm some daft bint! I was only trying to _humor_ you, for Christ's sake . . ."

"Aaaah, is Annawisa upset?" Carl would tease. "Are the other widdle kiddies picking on you binky-winky honey-wuney poo?"

"Oh, that's disgusting," Annalisa would giggle.

Still bristling over Gemma's remarks, Carl ran right into Peter.

"Move," Carl snapped.

Peter made a show of deliberating this, slowly stroking his chin and going "hmm, hmmm".

"Mmm, maybe if you say pretty please. With a cherry on top," Peter gave him an exaggerated wink.

Carl tried to lower holes through Peter's very obtuse skull. The not listening, playing intercom games bastard who had taken to arguing with Carl about the color of the sky just to bicker. The wanker who, with all his arguing, had Carl limping home every day feeling beat up and miserable. Carl would spend the nights with Mr. Jameson, uninterested in Annalisa's advances or tenderness, burbling questions like "Am I pretty?" and blubbering to her about how terrible his life was. There was only so much a man could take before it wore his pride thin. Carl was pissed off and tired and decided it was time to use that bit of ammunition he had never dreamed of using with Peter.

"Move," Carl said and hesitated before loading the shot. "_Stupid._"

Juvenile name calling it might've been, but it did its nasty little trick. Peter, prideful, sometimes arrogant, mostly angelic Peter Doherty, physically deflated. There was no insult that hurt him more than being called stupid, he had once told Carl, while they were huddled together in the handicapped stall one afternoon. Peter had explained being called stupid made him feel like he was all of eight and had piddled in his pants at school and had to be hauled home and yelled at by his father. Whereupon he had piddled in his pants a second time.

Peter looked around, wallowing, feeling punctured by Carl and Carl knew it - _savored_ it. Karma, you cunt, Carl thought has he pushed Peter aside as he went on his way to clock in, ignoring the sound of his heart whimpering over Peter's wilted look.   


*

  
The hour-long lunch couldn't arrive fast enough for Peter. Carl was riding Peter's ass (metaphorically now, not literally, alas), pushing and shoving him when he could get away with it, taunting him and deriding him with a number of words and tones, all of which said, "you stupid twat". They had desintegrated into throwing candles at each other and then wrestling on the floor until the two Kirstys separated them and Banny, short of all options but chucking them out of the store, decided it was time for lunch.

Peter tip-toed over to shoes to call Kate, even if it was two a.m. in the morning. Somewhere in the world it was twelve in the afternoon anyways, he rationalized, as he listened to the dial tone.

"Who is this?" Kate said drowsily from the other line after a minute.

"Peter," Peter dug a toe into the floor.

"Why are you calling at two in the morning? Is something wrong?"

Peter was about to confess his sob story about his tit for tat with Carl when – speak of the devil – Carl pushed through the stockroom door and whacked Peter with the door as he did.

"OOOPS," he said loudly. "I didn't see you there, Petey boy."

Peter glared and Kate on the other side sighed.

"It's always Carl. You two are like toddlers," she said. "I'm going back to sleep. Sort it out yourselves. I'm already one person's mother."

_Click_.

Peter was stranded in a dark backroom with a madman, no allies and no witnesses. Carl might very well decide to murder Peter by squashing him between sliding shoe shelves. They wouldn't find his mangled body until someone came to work in shoes, and, knowing how the management scheduled people, Peter could be there a few days before people noticed the smell.

"Piss off," Peter snarled with more vindictiveness than he felt.

"Oh yeah? Big words from a bloke like you," Carl stood on tiptoes so he would be nose to nose with Peter and they could properly stare each other down. Carl's breath washing over Peter's face made something uncoil in Peter, something that ached right between his heart and his gut.

Peter snorted, feeling his anger resurging. Anger at letting himself be bullied by Carl, anger at Carl for running off with that mingy tart, for not waiting, for calling him stupid and making him feel like a child when he knew better. Anger for being angry with Carl. For what and for why Peter would wonder sometimes at night, feeling ripped open and completely drained by spite. He wanted to punch something. He wanted it to hurt and he didn't care who or how.

"I hate you," Peter said.

"I hate you more," Carl stammered and Peter couldn't believe they were saying these things to each other.

"I hate you times infinity!" Peter growled.

"I hate you infinity times infinity!"

"I hate you infinity times infinity _squared_!"

"GOD HATES YOU!" Carl shouted.

"IF THERE IS A GOD, HE HATES YOU MORE!"

"YOUR MOTHER HATES YOU!"

"YOUR MOTHER WANTED TO DROWN YOU WHEN YOU WERE BORN!"

"YOUR GIRLFRIEND . . . has . . . butt boils."

Carl had not just crossed the line, but obliterated it. There were some places one just didn't go, and one of them was insulting Kate's magical, luscious, smooth, firm arse (she had let Peter grope it; he _knew_). Peter was about to retaliate by punching Carl, but Carl turned and ran like hell.

 

**Bets**  
They had reached the bed linens and pillows when Peter caught up to Carl. Peter was ready to commit murder, the dirty, passionate kind that would have him in court trying to look bashfully innocent and claiming temporary insanity. Carl grabbed a pillow and _thwacked_ Peter across the face with it. Peter yanked his own off a shelf and they started battering each other mindlessly, hissing insults between blows.

Eleven minutes in and the pillows were about as useful as beating each other with handkerchiefs, they were so flattened. Peter and Carl's arms were aching and they were panting, snorting. Carl threw down his pillow and put his dukes up in what he thought was a macho way but made Peter want to laugh because he looked like a complete prat, flushed from pillow fighting, hair in his eyes and trying not to fall over.

"Come on, you . . ." Carl gulped and tried to sort out an insult he hadn't used already.

"I hate you," Peter managed pathetically and let go of his pillow.

"You said that already," Carl said, still trying to circle Peter with his Menacing Fists of Fury (forget the fact that his fists kept going slack and he had to remind himself to clench them).

"I thought I should remind you. You have a short memory or sommat," Peter shrugged and knew the insult was lamer than a one legged Biblical leper **, but he didn't give a rat's ass.

"You bastard," Carl panted and forced some kind of weak indignation into his voice.

"Yeah," Peter said and had forgotten what he was doing or why or why he was angry at Carl. Letting the blows rain down on Carl – that had felt good. He had felt his muscles ripple and the anger roar through them. It was like feeling a rope tear through his fingers, leaving hot and raw burns on his skin. But at the end, other things. How he had told Carl what he hadn't told anyone else – like about being called stupid – or his vague theories on poetry and aesthetics. He remembered how Carl had sounded and felt when he had gasped and purred in delight from things Peter had done to his body. How Carl tasted. And he remembered how Carl had this absent minded habit of running his finger's up and down Peter's spine when he thought no-one else was around to see. Just little fragments that drifted in as the anger left Peter's body.

Peter had a weird look on his face, a startled, scared look and it worried Carl. He liked beating at each other, flinging insults at each other. He understood that, even if he never much liked anger and had a bad habit of suppressing it until it grew fangs and talons and exploded out of him. What he didn't quiet understand was why he should want to still call Peter in the middle of the night, from Anna's no less, and talk about, oh, anything. Doctor Who on telly. Or that exciting boxed set of _Battlestar Galactica_ he'd just got in the mail. Or how frakked up his schedule was lately. How he occasionally would roll over and put his arm around Annalisa and wonder about having Peter in that spot. A thought that terrified him and he didn't want to own up to. Maybe because it was getting mush with another bloke, maybe because it meant that he wasn't completely faithful to Anna in some ways and he prided himself on having some semblance of moral decency in a world that increasingly didn't seem to care, or both.

Peter wobbled, lost and confused. The tiles were spinning under Peter and Carl wondered if one could hit another person hard enough with a pillow to give them a concussion. There was only, like, feather down in the pillows, and not some super advanced state of the art feather down imitation filling that never stopped being fluffy or something that wasn't properly tested and could be proven to cause random injuries by rolling onto one's side . . . ?

Peter fixed Carl with that look, the scary one, and started to close the space between them with those long Peter legs. Carl backed away until he collided with a shelf of boxed bras, the kind that women with enormous boobs wore for back support and had made Carl laugh until one such woman caught him snickering and beaned him one with her handbag. Peter splayed his hands above Carl's shoulders and had Carl trapped.

"Carl," Peter said and the sound of his voice, his tone, the way he shaped his lips and tongue around the name, _his_ name, made every hair on Carl's body feel like it was on fire.

They didn't register until it was too late that they were kissing each other. Really kissing, which was something they hadn't done. Timid at first, lips just touching, feeling each other out. Peter rubbed strands of Carl's hair in his fingers. Carl put his arm around Peter and his fingers started climbing Peter's spine. Peter smiled and Carl could _feel_ it, not just in his face but in every line of Peter's body, every muscle as he relaxed into Carl and swiped at Carl's lips with a slick, warm tongue. Carl nibbled Peter's lower lip and they tipped open their mouths and it was like – drinking. Only the kind where one is trying to get blitzed out of one's skull. Alcoholics relapsing, swilling and lapping up everything within reach all at once, down to the last drop licked. They vertigoed past the logical parts of their brains, where loud alarms and lights flashing ANNALISA and KATE were happening without them.

Carl's fingers stopped dancing on Peter's spine and he clawed at Peter's back, sucking hard on Peter's tongue before he slid his arm around Peter's waist and crushed him closer. Peter moaned into Carl's mouth and they could feel each other's erections swelling through their jeans. They rubbed and strained against each other, hands were running all over and Peter, Peter was kneading Carl's ass in his hands. And Peter had a clever mouth, _oh yes_, but Carl's tongue was agile, insistent, flicking in and out of Peter's mouth, making Peter believe he had no knees whatsoever. They peeled apart for a few breaths. Peter was tracing Carl's reddened lower lip with his thumb, giving Carl a look that radiated adoration through his long chestnut lashes. Carl felt something well in him that wasn't the blood racing to his cock. He started to cry, quietly.

"What the fuck?" Carl managed after a minute.

"Carl? What –"

"The fuck!" Carl rumbled.

They heard a cough behind them.

"Sorry guys," Kirsty W smiled sheepishly as Banny walked into her because she was too busy eyeballing the PeternCarl snogfest.

Peter and Carl looked guilty and extracted themselves from each other, wiping spit off their mouths and muttering. Carl scrubbed furiously at his eyes.

Banny and Kirsty W too casually turned their backs to Peter and Carl. Peter saw Banny holding out her hand to Kirsty W. Kirsty W made a face while she dug in her pockets.

"Cough it up. I told you. Who interviewed 'em? I said . . ." Peter picked up Banny's whisper. Carl was busy staring off into space while his head felt like it should pop off altogether.

"You were making - bets? On us?" Peter squeaked faintly.

"Uhm," Banny said "Er. Twentypoundsthatyouwouldhookupinsixmonths," Banny mumbled rapidly.

"But we, we were, we're . . ." Peter stumbled. We were, had been, you know, fucking, once, he nearly said, but.

Banny and Kirsty W looked abashed. Kirsty W nudged Banny, mouthing, _let's go_ and they delicately started taking their leave. Carl grumbled something that sounded like "fuck you guys" and hurried off, grinding his molars. Peter watched him go, wondering what in the bloody blazes to do next.

 

\------------------------------  
* You mean that thing that's used on the ice? Sorta kinda. Where I work, we do call it the zamboni machine, but it spits out water and soap and shines the tiles. Makes them very clean and pretty.   
** With all due respect to Biblical lepers, of course.


End file.
